Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Bush’s bluff has been called. He was counting on Iraq not asking for a timetable for US troop withdrawal. Now they have. Indeed, the very country that would “fall into chaos” if we were to leave is asking us to start packing up our things. I guess Iraq just wants to surrender and hand a victory to the terrorists, who will most assuredly be emboldened by a US withdrawal. I blame Democrats, who the Iraqis are clearly taking after here. Bush has already dismissed the timetable idea, even though he previously said we would leave if asked by the Iraqi government. "Shut up, Spock! We're rescuing you."W knows best?Iraq, there’s no way we can “quit you” in the near future. We’ve got too much money – in the form of bloated defense budgets, war-profiteering mercenary contractors and promises of oodles of barrels of lucrative Mesopotamian dinosaur juice to big petroleum – tied up in this operation to walk away now. Besides, we want to make sure leaving looks like our idea. We may lose a couple thousand more soldiers before all is said and done, but we will save face. Well, in our own minds. We are already quite faceless before most of the world now.